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Characteristics of American Literary
Romanticism1. INDIVIDUALISM
– Popularized by the frontier tradition– Jacksonian democracy– Supported Abolitionism
2. IMAGINATION
– Reaction against the earlier age’s emphasis on Reason
– Abandonment of literary tradition in favor of experimentation
– “Organicism”: every idea held within it an inherent structure
3. EMOTION
– Feeling is now considered superior to rationality as the mode of perceiving and experiencing reality
– Intuition leads one to truth– Truth/reality are now highly subjective
4. NATURE
– The means of knowing Truth
• God reveals himself solely through Nature
• Nature becomes a moral teacher
– The actual subject matter of the Romantics
5. DISTANT SETTINGS
– Both in terms of time and place– Used to comment on attitudes of the time
period
The Fireside Poets
America’s First Literary Rock Stars
What are the Fireside Poets?
• First group of American poets to rival British poets in popularity in either country.
• Notable for their scholarship and the resilience of their lines and themes.
• Preferred conventional forms over experimentation.
• Often used American legends and scenes of American life as their subject matter.
Who were the Fireside Poets?
• Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
• William Cullen Bryant
• James Russell Lowell
• Oliver Wendell Holmes
• John Greenleaf Whittier
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
• 1807-1882• Composed “Song
of Hiawatha”, • “Paul Revere’s
Ride” • “Psalm of Life”• “The Tide Rises,
The Tide Falls”
William Cullen Bryant
• 1794-1878• Composed “To a
Waterfowl” and “Thanatopsis”
• One of the founders of the Republican party and supporter of Lincoln
James Russell Lowell
• 1819-1891• Composed “The
First Snowfall” and “The Present Crisis”
• Active in anti-slavery causes
Oliver Wendell Holmes
• 1809-1894• Medical doctor –
invented the term “anesthesia.”
• Composed “Old Ironsides,” which saved the U.S.S. Constitution from the scrap yard
• Father of Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
John Greenleaf Whittier
• 1807-1892• Composed Snow-
bound , “Maude Muller” and “Barefoot Boy”
• Active in anti-slavery movement
Lasting Impact
• Longfellow remained the most popular American poet for decades. When Poe criticized him, he was all but ostracized. Longfellow remains the only American poet to be immortalized by a bust in Westminster Abbey’s Poets’ Corner
• They took on causes in their poetry, such as the abolition of slavery, which brought the issues to the forefront in a palatable way.
• Through their scholarship and editorial efforts, they paved the way for later Romantic writers like Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, and Walt Whitman.